December 26, 2023
Published by Tradition Online at December 26, 2023
On Simhat Torah, we set out on two journeys: our planned-for journey through the weekly Torah reading, and a harrowing voyage down the path of loss and war. The second trek challenges us daily, while the first helped Rachel Sharansky Danziger through each challenge posed along the way. As the two looped into each other, they changed her understanding of them both.
December 24, 2023
Published by Tradition Online at December 24, 2023
You are no doubt inundated with end-of-year donation requests for worthy causes. Please accept this update not as an appeal for your support but as a year-end inventory of what TRADITION has contributed to you, our readers. This year our Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought undertook important new ventures, made new achievements, and delivered engaging and enlightening scholarship in the four installments of Volume #55. Our editor Jeffrey Saks reviews 2023’s highlights here….
December 21, 2023
Published by Jeffrey Saks at December 21, 2023
With the conclusion of this academic semester Rabbi Shalom Carmy, esteemed editor emeritus of TRADITION, reaches the milestone of 50 years of teaching at Yeshiva University. To mark the occasion we are sharing this link to "Divrei Shalom: Collected Editor’s Notes," edited by Avraham Wein with an introduction by Yitzchak Blau, which was published in 2019 as he stepped down from editor's position at our journal. We are pleased to make that entire volume available as a free e-book.
December 18, 2023
Published by Tradition Online at December 18, 2023
How could Judah convince an Egyptian official (unbeknownst to Judah, none other than the long-lost Joseph) to enslave an innocent man and let a convicted thief go free? Judah rises to the challenge magnificently. Read about the epic confrontation between Joseph and Judah in Hillel J. Chiel’s essay from the TRADITION Archives.
December 15, 2023
Published by Tradition Online at December 15, 2023
In light of the rare non-coincidence of Miketz and Hanukka we will read the almost always preempted Haftara for this week’s portion – which includes the well-known episode of Solomon’s judgment in the case of maternal identity. Rabbi J. David Bleich discussed this passage from I Kings in his “Survey of Recent Halakhic Literature” in our Fall 2023 issue. Read an excerpt from his article, “Horton Hatches the Egg, Who Raises the Chick?: Maternal Identity, Custody, and the Israeli Courts.”
December 14, 2023
Published by Tradition Online at December 14, 2023
What do the colors of Hannuka candles say about religious culture and crafty consumerism? Do our holidays need color palattes? How much of American Jewish life is tied to subconscious marketing trends? Chaim Strauchler speculates in a very special holiday installment of TRADITION Questions brought to you by Hallmark.
December 12, 2023
Published by Tradition Online at December 12, 2023
Hannuka’s requirement of “ner ish u-beyto” makes the candle-lighting mitzva a house-bound one. Avraham Stav, writing from the Gaza border, asks how myriad Israeli soldiers dwelling in the field, and almost as many Israelis displaced from their homes, help us reevaluate and expand the meaning of “bayit” as we light our candles.
December 10, 2023
Published by Jeffrey Saks at December 10, 2023
In this TRADITION classic from our archives: Prof. Gerald Blidstein z"l offers possible explanations for Hazal’s suppression of the Jewish Hellenizers in the Hanukka story. Neither the Talmud nor the holiday prayers make reference to them even though the Book of Macabbees portrays Jewish Hellenizers as central to the story. Blidstein offers several tentative explanations for this omission including the possibility that Hazal did not want us to celebrate a civil war.
December 7, 2023
Published by Tradition Online at December 7, 2023
How empty is the old “empty wagon” metaphor for the religious-secular status quo in Israel? If both sides of the debate understand the other is here to stay, what options are open for finding a middle ground—especially as Jewish learning and culture should be valued by both? How much diversity can and should tolerance tolerate? Until a tragic injury, Prof. Aviezer Ravitzky was among Israel’s most prominent public intellectuals—Yitzchak Blau surveys some of Ravitzky’s writings on these subjects in Alt+SHIFT.